


twenty four hours late (and the rest)

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flying Doctors
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 20:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11813667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: Tom doesn't remember Valentine's Day being such a big deal. But when he and Chris get stranded on a clinic run, that's not the only surprise.





	twenty four hours late (and the rest)

**Author's Note:**

> For gen prompt bingo - a mystery to investigate

Maybe things had changed a lot since he'd been gone, but Tom genuinely didn't remember Valentine's Day being such a big deal a few years ago. Of course, things have changed in that some of them actually have relationships now - between Sam and Emma and Geoff and Kate, the Bush Telegraph had plenty to keep them going, Operation Baby Watch being the next big thing. But for all Tom had been away for years, he remembered what it was like to hear whispers behind your back and he knew that a lot of them had to do with him and Chris, wondering if they were ever going to get back together again. Tom had overheard enough on various clinic runs to know that there were two camps - some die hard romantics apparently were convinced it was only a matter of time, while the rest were convinced that he'd broken her heart and she was either well shot of him or never going to forgive him, or both. 

Truth be told, he wasn't quite sure which way the wind was blowing and he didn't really want to ruin the friendship they had now by pushing things to find out. 

Except coming up to Valentine's Day, the second and third looks and grins were getting ridiculous. 

And when they found themselves paired up on that day's clinic run, Tom wasn't sure that someone hadn't worked that roster out on purpose. From the way Chris reacted when she saw it - pinched lips, colour high on her cheeks - he rather suspected she felt the same. 

But he didn't talk to her about it, because he still didn't want to push it. 

Besides, it was just a clinic run, they'd done hundreds, thousands. 

What, Tom asked himself, could possibly go wrong? 

He should have known the universe had a strange sense of humour. 

Because while it was supposed to be an ordinary clinic run, straight in, straight out, back in Cooper's Crossing before nightfall, there had been no way to predict that Jack Sinclair would come off his horse the very day they had the clinic run at his family's property and that the eight year old would need to be transported to the hospital back in Cooper's Crossing. Due to his age, his mother would have to go with him and because of weight constraints, that meant two of the RFDS staff would have to stay behind, and because of the time, because of refuelling issues, there was no way for Sam to come back and collect them before morning. 

Under normal circumstances, one of the doctors would have flown back with Jack but they all knew that not only was Kate was more than capable of taking care of him, but between her, Tom and Chris, she also was the only one with an actual reason to be back in Cooper's Crossing that evening. Still, she'd looked between Tom and Chris said, "So, which one of you is going back?" 

She hadn't sounded happy and Tom knew why, glanced over at Chris and lifted one eyebrow in silent question. There had been a tiny smile playing around her lips when she met his gaze and the smile grew bigger as she turned back to Kate. "Go on," she said and a huge smile threatened to split Kate's face in two. "Go and have a romantic Valentine's Day evening with your husband." 

"Are you sure?" Kate looked between the two of them and Tom didn't have to think twice about his answer. 

"Absolutely. Go be happy." Someone should be, he thought, but he didn't say that out loud. 

Kate was still grinning but her eyes moved between Tom and Chris like she was a spectator at a tennis match they were playing. "And you two will be ok?" She was looking more at Chris, Tom could see, a slight edge to her voice and Tom turned away to leave them too whatever silent interplay was going on there. Not quickly enough to miss the way Kate waggled her eye brows at Chris when she thought he couldn't see, and definitely not quick enough to miss the absolutely murderous look that Chris shot her in return. 

"It's not the first time we've had to stay over somewhere," she told Kate, steel in her tone and oh, Tom would love to be a fly on the wall for their next conversation. Then again, when he considered that it would be likely to do with him, maybe not. 

"Well then." Kate sounded happy, in a teasing kind of way. "I'll see you tomorrow." 

She practically skipped off to find Sam while Chris and Tom fell back into the roles of doctoring, getting Jack settled on the plane, patching up the patients who had been pushed to the side when the emergency came up. Then there was dinner to be eaten - not an issue, since the one constant with clinic runs was that all the properties nearby contributed food for anyone who might show up - and night had well fallen by the time he and Chris found themselves alone on the veranda. 

Chris got there first - the men hadn't been as eager to talk to her as they were to talk to him so she'd been able to escape sooner, something that he was extremely jealous about - and when he found her, he had a cup of milky tea in each hand, one for him and one for her. "Brought you this," he said and she accepted it with a smile. "I may have eaten the last of the lammingtons though." 

He sank down into the chair beside hers with a grateful little groan and the world seemed a little brighter with the smile she gave him. "Don't worry about it," she said. "I had two this afternoon." 

He pretended to be shocked. "And all your talk about healthy eating, Doctor Randall? I'm appalled." 

"You're jealous," Chris shot back and he couldn't exactly deny that. 

"Well, Mrs Sinclair's lammingtons are famous all over the Outback," he said as he raised his cup to his lips. "And not exactly easy to come by in East Africa." 

Chris sipped her tea with a thoughtful look on her face. Shifting on her seat, she curled her legs up underneath herself. He recognised that expression, that position, from years ago. It was the one she used when she was feeling comfortable, relaxed. He hadn't seen it in a long time. "What else did you miss?" She didn't look at him when she spoke, was staring into her tea cup and Tom felt a metaphorical push, almost as if the ground shifted under his feet as he considered the question. 

Because there was the obvious answer. Her, every day and every night they were apart. Her smile, her touch, the way she made him feel when she smiled over at him from the other side of the base, or the pub, or on a clinic run. Her company, not just when he felt he needed a second opinion, but when he needed a second, someone who he trusted absolutely, someone who trusted him. And especially her company at times like this, at the end of the day when he just wanted someone to talk to, someone to listen to. 

Not just anyone though. 

Her. 

Always her. 

But, he realised suddenly, he couldn't tell her that, not now, not here, and not just because he'd realised, maybe for the first time that all those feelings, all those longings, all those things he missed, they were just as acute, here, now, with her sitting beside him, as they'd ever been over in Eritrea. Besides, what good would it do to stir it all up again? He knew she'd moved on, that there had been other men in her life, a fact he didn't like to dwell on too much - for all he knew he had no claim on Chris, that he hadn't for a long time, those old jealous habits of his were hard to break. And even if there were some chance that she did want to pick up where they left off, he knew he still wasn't entirely over his experiences in Africa, and she deserved more than someone who woke up every so often in a cold sweat after dreaming of camps being bombed and children dying in his arms.

"Oh, all kinds of things," he told her mildly, hoping she couldn't tell he was lying through his teeth. "Nancy's cooking... hot running water... a decent cup of tea..." He held up the cup as if in salute. "And of course... Mrs Sinclair's lammingtons." 

She said the last with him, a smile on her face and a laugh at the end of it and he found himself laughing too. "I missed a lot of things, Chris," he heard himself saying, the words surprising him and, if the way her eyes widened was any indication, her as well. "I still do." 

He'd said too much, he realised at once when Chris bit her lip and looked down, breaking their eye contact. "Well, I'm pretty tired," she said, leaving her cup, still half full, on the table. "I should head up." 

It wasn't that late, and Tom found himself sitting up, not wanting her to go, not wanting their evening to end so quickly. "You got a room in the big house?" he asked and she gave him a quick, tight smile as she stood up. 

"They said I can have Jack's room," she said. "What about you?" 

"Stationhands' quarters," he said with a shrug. "Comfortable enough... I've slept on worse." The last was added when she wrinkled her nose. "Besides at least they have hot running water." 

For some reason, Chris's cheeks flushed a dull red. "There's always a bright side," she said, tapping her fingers against the table. "Well... good night." 

"Good night," Tom called after her, watching her walk away. It felt strangely familiar and he sat there until his tea was cold and forgotten in the cup. 

He didn't exactly sleep well that night, too many dreams of the African countryside, crying children heavy in his arms and, before he woke up in a cold sweat, Chris heavy in his arms, her eyes glazed and feverish, her skin pale and drawn. The image lingered in his mind long after he woke up, and not even a hot, and surprisingly powerful shower in the stationhands' quarters could erase it entirely. He was making his way up to the main house to find Chris when he met Dave Sinclair walking down the front porch steps. "Got a call from your pilot on the radio," he said. "Should be here in about ten minutes." 

Tom nodded. "Does Doctor Randall know?" 

Dave shrugged. "Not seen her this morning." He scratched the back of his neck, looking awkward, embarrassed almost. "Help yourself to breakfast... the wife usually does that, but..." 

Tom dismissed his obvious worry with a wave of his hand. "I'm sure there are some leftovers from yesterday," he said and the other man snorted in both obvious amusement and agreement. Dave went on down the steps and Tom went into the house, glancing up the stairs and tilting his head as he heard a shower running. Since Jack Sinclair was an only child, there was only one person that it could be, and he grinned as he went into the kitchen, opening the fridge and finding a plate of sandwiches covered with tin foil. Snagging a couple, he wolfed them down, only beginning to move up the stairs when he heard the shower cut off, and only then after counting to one hundred in his head. 

"Chris, Sam's been on the radio, he should be here in about five minutes-" The door to Jack Sinclair's room was slightly ajar and so he didn't think twice about pushing it open, stopping dead in his tracks when he heard Chris's gasp. He understood the reason for it straight away, because he'd caught her half dressed, if that - yesterday's skirt was on, but not zipped up and as he stared at her, she was frozen in the process of pulling on her shirt over an ivory lacy bra that almost, but not quite, blended into her creamy skin. He froze too, unable to move, his gaze raking over her body and when it fell to her chest, lingered there, his breath caught audibly in his throat. 

That sound seemed to galvanise Chris into motion and she spun neatly on her heel so that her back was to him. "I'm almost ready," she said and her voice shook. When she turned back to him, the top few buttons of her shirt were fastened but from clear across the room, he could see her hands were shaking as much as her voice was. 

"Chris-" 

His voice trailed off and she gave him a smile that didn't come close to reaching her eyes. "Don't worry about it, it's nothing you haven't seen before, right?" He opened his mouth to speak, to tell her that that was part of the problem, but she closed her eyes as if she was in pain, pressed her lips together so tightly that the edges turned white. It was a marked contrast to the colour that flared high on her cheeks and she made an impatient sound as she yanked up the zipper of her skirt so hard that he was surprised the little tag didn't come clean off. "We should get going," she said, making to move past him and he didn't think about it, just reached out and grabbed her elbow. 

"Chris-"

"Tom..." She didn't let him finish, didn't look him in the eyes either. "Please... let's just go." 

He dropped his arm and, just like the previous night, he watched her walk away. 

He watched her for most of the morning too, all the way back in the plane, all the time on the base as well and it didn't escape his notice that she barely looked at him, didn't say two words to him. It was so obvious, in fact, that he caught Sam looking around in the plane on more than one occasion, saw Kate and Geoff trading curious and worried looks once they were back on base. Not that he was much for talking himself, because he couldn't stop thinking about Chris, about how he'd walked in on her that morning. It was hardly the first time that he'd seen her in a state of undress and over the intervening years, memory and imagination had combined to keep him company on many a lonely night. This was different though because he'd thought he knew every inch of her body and once upon a time, he had. But he'd never seen that long angry white scar that ran down her chest before and he couldn't stop thinking about what might have put it there. 

How he got through the day's work, he didn't know, but by nightfall, he couldn't stand it any longer, knowing that he wouldn't have a minute's peace until he investigated his mystery. He found himself standing outside Chris's house, knocking on the door and when she opened up, her shoulders rose and fell in a deep sigh. "I was expecting you an hour ago," she told him and he shrugged as he shoved both hands in his pockets. 

"Mind if I come in?"

But she was already opening the screen door and once again walking away from him.

This time, he followed her. 

"Something to drink?" Her voice was higher than usual, nervous he thought, and he shook his head, even though he knew she couldn't see him. 

"I don't want a drink." She turned slowly at his words, wrapped her arms around herself and looked down. He'd rarely seen Chris - strong, proud, stubborn as hell - look so small, so lost and his heart tugged painfully in his chest. "What happened to you?"

She took a deep breath as she looked back up at him. "It was an intramural pheochromocytoma," she told him and he knew his jaw dropped as the words, the knowledge of what they meant, hit him like a two by four to the back of the head. "Almost a year ago now." 

Tom nodded, trying to process the timeline, where he'd been, what he'd been doing then. It all blurred into a succession of loss and horror so he concentrated on a different train of thought. "Who did the surgery?" he asked and Chris shook her head at the typical doctor's question. 

"A friend of Geoff's in Sydney... it all went well." Her smile turned bashful, almost embarrassed. "I didn't want to go... we tried to treat it with medication first. That lasted until I went tachycardiac during a radio clinic... I think I frightened poor DJ out of about ten years of life."

"It's not funny." The words flew out of his mouth without conscious thought and she blinked, taken aback at the force of them. He was a little taken aback himself, truth be told, but he certainly wasn't going to apologise. "You could have died, Chris. Either from the tumour or the operation... you could have died." Images from last night's final nightmare danced through his mind again, twisting so that instead of lying on a camp bed in an African relief camp, she was lying pale and cold in a Sydney hospital bed. Even at this time of night, it was ridiculously hot in the Outback, but a chill ran through him anyway at the thought. 

"But I didn't." Suddenly, she was standing in front of him and her hand was warm and soft on his arm, her eyes bright and alive. "I didn't."

"But you could have. And I'd have waltzed back into town one day with my head hopefully screwed on right, expecting some grand reunion and you'd be..." He had to swallow hard, his mind hardly able to wrap around the notion. "It was bad enough with Gibbo," he told her and a flash of pain seared across her face at the mention of their friend. "But you..." His hands moved up to curl around her shoulders at the same time as hers came to rest on his chest, worrying the buttons of his shirt. "I couldn't take that, Chris... I couldn't." 

"You don't have to." Her voice was low, her eyes huge and dark, pupils dilated. "I'm not going anywhere." 

There was nothing he could say to that so he pulled her into a hug instead, a tight one, crushing her against his chest. Her arms slipped around his waist, her head fit snugly against his shoulder just as it had always done and suddenly, crazily, for the first time in five months, Tom felt like he'd finally come home. 

"I'm going to have to hold you to that," he said, burying his head in the top of hers, closing his eyes at the familiar but strange feel of her hair against his cheek. It was shorter now and he liked it, thought it suited her, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't miss the curls, didn't miss how it felt to run his fingers through them. "I feel like I've only just found you again... I don't want to lose you." 

"You won't." Her voice was fierce, muffled by his shirt and he could feel her hands making fists of the material. "You couldn't." 

He didn't know how long they stood there like that, the two of them holding onto each other like each was trying to keep the other from drowning. He did know that when he loosened his grip on her waist, it was only so that he could take both her hands in his. "I'm sorry," he said and he could see her surprise written all over her face, in her wide eyes. "I've spent so long wrapped up in everything that happened to me over there... I never once thought of what might have happened with you, just treated you like the same old Chris." He reached up, brushed back a non-existent lock of hair behind her ear - another old habit. "You must think I'm a complete arse." 

Her lips twitched. "You have your moments." He deserved that, he knew, and he laughed with her, nodding his head in agreement. "But I never pushed the issue... I didn't want to lay all that on you, not when I knew you were still..." 

Her voice trailed off and trying to be a gentleman, he stepped in to help her out. "A complete mess?" 

She didn't laugh, just smiled sadly. "Hurting," was all she said and Tom felt something twinge in his chest when he heard that word said in that tone. 

"You're too good to me." Giving into temptation, he reached out, ran his knuckles gently along her cheek. Her eyes fluttered shut at the movement and he felt her shiver. She stared up at him, lips slightly parted and he decided to hell with it, leaned in slowly and brought his lips to hers. 

He half expected her to pull away, but she didn't. Instead she raised herself up to meet him halfway, her lips turning up in a smile underneath his. 

It was nothing like their previous first kisses - a quick press of lips out of a car window, leaning her back over his arm in fancy dress, a long embrace on her front porch. The first had been designed to get people talking, the second to shut them up, the third just for them, full of hope and promise and youthful passion. This kiss was different to them all, maybe different to any they'd shared before. It was slow and tentative, careful even, a kiss shared between two people who'd known more than their fair share of terror and loss, between two people who'd been scarred by their experiences but who were beginning to come out the other side. 

And yet, when he drew back, when he rested his forehead against hers, he still felt, like earlier, that a two by four had given him a hefty whack to the back of the head. This one, though, was much more pleasurable. 

Not though, as pleasurable as the hope that flared in his chest when he saw the smile on Chris's face, saw happiness shining from her eyes. "Happy Valentine's Day," he said and she tilted her head, narrowed her eyes. 

"You're late," she informed him. "Twenty four hours late." 

"A little more than that, I think," he replied, because he wasn't just thinking about tonight. "But I promise to make it up to you." 

She didn't answer that, not in words anyway. But when she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him close to kiss him again, Tom rather thought she approved.


End file.
